By Ian Williams
NEW YORK, May 25 2026 – AS THE WORLD HURTLES TO HELL (albeit in a SpaceX rather than a hand basket), it might seem of only academic interest which cipher vegetates on the 38th floor of the U.N. Headquarters. However, the choice is due by the end of the year, unless, as has happened in the past, the Security Council is veto-bound and asks António Guterres to stay on as interim Secretary General.

Guterres certainly has experience for a seat-warming position, since he has performed like an interim Secretary General ever since he was first appointed. At times when his voice could and should have made a difference, he has followed the guidance of the three wise monkeys (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil). The Secretary General’s ability to put items on the council agenda and raise them publicly are his few effective powers in the face of the permanent members’ traditional lackadaisical stance.

His studied withdrawal from influence has infected other levels of the Secretariat and allowed the Security Council to reach new lows of subservience to power. So, if and when the council picks his successor, it’s unlikely that crowds will gather on U.N. Plaza to watch the white smoke rising to announce the anointment.

That is not only because Trump World Tower looms over the plaza like an escaped prop from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” but also because its eponymous owner has done so much to devalue the U.N. One could almost suspect that it is only allowed to hang on in New York because property values would plummet in the neighborhood if all the insouciant and complaisant diplomats who work in the U.N. complex had to leave.

The U.N.’s geopolitical absence certainly diminishes potential public interest in the race and is compounded by the increasing ineffectuality of the Security Council in the face of the erasure of the U.N. Charter. The guiding principle of the Secretariat often seems to be plucked from Arthur Hugh Clough’s old poem, “Thou shalt not kill/ But needs’t not strive, officiously to keep alive.”

However, the general membership is almost as complicit. Faced with the latest U.S. demand to reshape the organization before Washington even considers paying a part of its legally obligated payments, their response is to dicker about the depth of evisceration, not to challenge the assumptions. Of course, the U.N. needs reform—but not necessarily in the way the U.S. has been demanding for half a century.

Western signatories of the Rome Convention for the International Criminal Court have left their nationals, like Francesca Albanese and Karim Khan, to swing in the wind in the face of an entirely illegal U.S.–Israeli war on International Criminal Court staff. Even their home states’ declaration that they will provide government backed credit to the victims of U.S. sanctions would send a signal and some succor to the judges. A robust denunciation by the outgoing Secretary General (a lame duck and hence beyond significant U.S. payback) would have helped, but it was not forthcoming.

As the only figure who could coordinate (and heaven help us, lead) the defense, the forlorn position of the Secretary General is still essential despite the lackluster field. So, the choice is important—as well as boring.

So far, there is a growing consensus that the next leader needs to be a woman, which China has been very firm on, and should be from the Latin American and Caribbean region. So far, it’s a very uninspiring and, dare one say, “mature” field. Maybe there should be as much pressure for “youth’s” turn as there is for a woman, not least since both declared female candidates are of a certain age. The “most difficult job in the world” is not one for the elderly.

The April candidate forums at the U.N. featured four announced aspirants, but as the Book of Proverbs says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” None of the candidates offered a vision: their presentations were more like an AI-generated resume for corporate human resources.

Even the candidates who showed some signs of integrity, like the “keeping the law” bit, seem to be missing the vision thing and, frankly, professed over-adherence to the law is a stretch for candidates who want to avoid a veto from the P5. Which is, of course, why there was conspicuous silence on the hustings about Israel and Iran. It also so far guaranteed candidates who will not rock the boat for Washington.

So in a field of lame horses, the three-legged one might limp home, and that could be former President of Senegal Macky Sall, who is not a woman, not Latin American and does not have the support of his own country or the African Union. His best qualification is the traditional U.N. promotion criterion: not being remembered for anything in particular. He could fall in the East River and not cause a ripple. But he is unlikely to be willing to undergo the gender transition necessary. China says it wants a woman and has historically been prepared to stand its ground with repeated vetoes.

Former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has the required diplomatic and political credentials, and she has clearly been playing the long game. As U.N. Human Rights Commissioner she sat upon a report about the People’s Republic of China’s abuse of the Uighurs, which might fend off a Chinese veto but raises questions about her integrity and independence.

It does suggest that she had acute political antennae since at that time pandering to China could have cost her support with the U.S. and Europeans—but now, perhaps not so much. Under the MAGA Trump Republicans, human rights are a now and then thing. More important perhaps to Washington, Chile’s new right-wing government pulled its endorsement of her which could burnish her credentials with what’s left of the progressive world. And her gender and Latin American origins tick other boxes.

In contrast, right-wing Argentinian President Javier Milei backs Rafael Grossi’s candidacy, which detracts from Grossi’s globalist credentials to head the U.N. However, as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), his equivocation about Iranian nuclear activities might well be negotiable into active U.S. support. He has been a deft tightrope walker, trying not to give Iran a clean bill of health, but avoiding complicity in an over-explicit casus belli to Washington, which would upset Moscow and Beijing (and may yet). But he has defied best practice for candidates by staying active in his U.N. role, which suggests he knows his IAEA position gives him cards to play.

Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan is an uninspiring apparatchik who has presided over the effectual dismantlement of U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, the development agency that had been in the sights of Washington for decades. While one cannot hold family connections against her, many countries might also worry about the optics of a secretary general whose sister is an Israeli settler in the West Bank. However, she is backed by her government, unlike some other candidates, and is a Latina, so ticks two of the boxes, and is likely to get support from the U.S. (and Israel, which does not have a direct seat on the Security Council, but nevertheless is reputedly a presence).

Looking at the heavily handicapped slate so far, it’s good that there are nominations waiting in the wings. Barbadian PM Mia Amor Mottley would be an ideal candidate, ticking both the vision and law boxes. A woman from the Latin American and Caribbean region whose otherwise disqualifying integrity might pass the Trump test by speaking English and being previously accoladed by no less than the American Enterprise Institute! However, she has just won re-election in Barbados and would probably prefer to stay where she is now.

Another person who announced her candidacy is Ecuador’s María Fernanda Espinosa, former General Assembly President, who is also missing support from her own government, but she has shown both vision and integrity and has other backers. And she is not of pensionable age.

In the end, sadly, the odds are against anyone who meets the needs of the world and organization. Their very qualifications would be unlikely to survive the whims and prejudices of this U.S. administration, let alone survive scrutiny by Moscow or Beijing. Even if Russia and China pay lip service to the international order and sacrifice their immediate prejudices for the greater good, Washington is unlikely to be so forbearing.

Overall, the question is whether the U.N. is redeemable while some countries have veto power. At one time the U.S. realized the advantages of maintaining the U.N. as a thin blue fig leaf for its actual hegemony, but it no longer sees the need to cover its rampant MAGA-hood.

U.N. correspondent Ian Williams is president of the Foreign Press Association of the U.S. He is the author of U.N.told: The Real Story of the United Nations in Peace and War (available from Middle East Books and More).

Source: Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs

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By JB Bae
FORT COLLINS, Colorado USA, May 25 2026 – The $1.2 billion renovation of the Palais des Nations was intended to reaffirm Geneva’s centrality to the multilateral system. Instead, the city’s international quarter is emptying.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has cut hundreds of positions. The U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is relocating core administrative roles to Rome and Budapest. Other agencies are scaling back or relocating operations. The United States, which funds roughly a quarter of the U.N.’s regular budget, now owes approximately $2.2 billion, about 95% of all unpaid contributions to the organization.

Many will read this as a harbinger of the decline, or perhaps even the demise, of the U.N. system. Yet the crisis in Geneva may be creating the conditions for a more resilient multilateralism.

Critics claim that American taxpayers subsidized a U.N. bureaucracy hostile to their interests, one lacking accountability and captured by priorities divorced from its founding purposes. There is some truth to this. However, these arguments have marginalized those who wish to refound the U.N. system, rather than dismantling multilateralism wholesale.

The erosion of U.S. funding may be doing what decades of reform efforts could not: forcing a realignment of the U.N.’s structure with its mission. Numerous proposals, secretary-general initiatives, and expert panels have failed to produce meaningful change.

The U.N.’s own 2021 Integration Review, drawing on input from over 200 staff members across the organization, found that institutional insulation undermined impact, calling for more decentralized decision-making and reforms responsive to field realities. Member states had pressed for the same for decades.

Meanwhile, Geneva came to embody the distance between those running the institution and the constituencies they were meant to serve. The compensation structure tells part of the story. Bureaucrats enjoyed tax-free salaries, exceptionally generous pension arrangements, housing allowances pegged to one of the world’s most expensive cities, business-class travel, and education grants that cover most of the cost of elite international-school tuition in Geneva, where annual fees often reach $45,000 per child per year.

One study of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) operations found spending of roughly $600 per refugee annually (around $800-850 in today’s dollars). U.N. reimbursements for a single child’s school fees in Geneva, in other words, could support dozens of refugees for a year. These arrangements are not reserved for senior leadership. They define the terms of employment for the typical international civil servant.

These terms apply to a substantial workforce. Switzerland hosts roughly forty international organizations that employ more than 25,000 people, most concentrated in the Lake Geneva region. The World Health Organization, the largest, employs roughly 2,400 people at its Geneva headquarters and operated on a biennial budget of $5.3 billion for 2026-27 before recent cuts. The International Labour Organization (ILO), UNHCR, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and others maintain significant presences in Geneva.

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When the U.N. Secretary-General’s office issued a memo in April 2025 directing Geneva and New York to identify posts for relocation to lower-cost duty stations, the Geneva staff union’s response was telling: its official statement declared the union “alarmed,” hundreds of staff demonstrated on International Workers’ Day to protect their Geneva postings, and unions defended housing subsidies, education grants, and tax exemptions as essential. These numbers and reactions reflect the insulation of much of Geneva from the realities the institution nominally exists to address.

Yet the crisis is strengthening the position of those within the system who have long called for change. The U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF)’s consolidation of regional functions to Bangkok, the expansion of U.N. agency operations in Nairobi, and shifting administrative functions to lower-cost duty stations all reflect a shift toward where the work actually is. Technology and the remote collaboration it enables make justifying the Geneva-centric model even more difficult. What once required flights to Geneva can now happen across multiple continents simultaneously.

Simply relocating institutions to less costly settings, however, risks reproducing Geneva’s pathologies — insulated professional communities, compensation structures detached from local conditions, and organizational cultures oriented more toward one another than toward the populations they serve. More than simply moving offices, structural reform requires confronting how these institutions are staffed, incentivized, and embedded in the political contexts in which they operate.

A more promising direction is aligning institutions with the political support and capacity of host nations. This goes beyond decentralization and proximity to need, toward placing authority where capacity and political will already exist. Former aid recipients that have become donors and regional powers in their own right — Poland, Chile, and South Korea among them — are natural candidates for anchoring this kind of multilateralism. Having navigated conflict, development, refugee flows, and political transition themselves, they bring the political legitimacy and operational credibility that Geneva-centered bureaucracies cannot replicate.

The substance of the changes also matters for the legitimacy of the international order. A multilateral system whose centers of decision-making remain in Geneva, New York, and a handful of donor capitals is vulnerable to the accusation that it represents a historical moment that has long passed. Institutions whose operational weight sits closer to the communities they serve, staffed by professionals embedded in supportive settings, are harder to displace. What survives will be better able to compete for relevance in a more contested world order.

Geneva will survive this crisis as a conference center for highest-stakes diplomacy and backroom dialogues that only physical proximity can enable. But what emerges beyond Geneva, in the field offices of agencies closer to the populations they serve and potentially in the hands of actors with the legitimacy and experience to carry multilateralism forward, may prove closer to what the system was always intended to be.

Many of the structural problems that have long plagued the U.N. will remain. The shifts now under way will not solve them. But they change where influence accumulates, and who shapes the decisions that matter. This new multilateralism may prove more resilient, more legitimate, and harder to hold captive to the politics of any single donor.

JB Bae is an assistant professor of political science at Colorado State University. His research addresses issues in international security and foreign policy, with a focus on East Asia. He received his PhD from UCLA.

The views expressed by authors on Responsible Statecraft do not necessarily reflect those of the Quincy Institute or its associates.

Source: Responsible Statecraft

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By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, May 25 2026 – The United Nations has had a longstanding tradition, described by some as a “privilege”, where most senior staffers are entitled to highly-expensive First Class or Business Class seats on trips worldwide.

But with the world body facing a severe cash crisis –and demands by the Trump administration calling for drastic cost-cutting—another privilege is likely to end up on the chopping block.

https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/senior-management-group

Speaking off-the-record, a former UN official told Inter Press Service: “On the rare occasion I travelled with the UN for work, I was always shocked by the enormous amounts paid for air tickets. I find it interesting to see that it took the UN a deep financial crisis to invite the staff to a ”voluntary” downgrade”

As part of the Organization’s ongoing efforts to reduce travel costs, and in response to the General Assembly’s call to strengthen measures to promote voluntary downgrades from business or first-class travel entitlements, the UN’s Human Resources Services Division (HRSD), in collaboration with the Travel and Transportation Section (TTS), in the Department of Operational Support (DOS), has launched the Voluntary Downgrade Pilot which introduced a set of new incentives to encourage voluntary downgrade for official air travels by United Nations travelers.

“The initiative is designed to encourage United Nations travelers to voluntarily downgrade from business class to premium economy, or equivalent cabins, by offering eligible travelers, a series of additional incentives aimed at maintaining comfort and convenience, while generating cost savings for the Organization,” says a circular released 18 May.

Meanwhile, in the latest figures released in one published report, the UN spent approximately $319 million on staff travel in one recent reporting year, covering roughly 98,000 trips.

Of those trips:

• About 12,000 flights were business class
• Only 51 flights were first class

The report also noted that the Secretary-General has recommended curbing first-class travel for senior officials.

Current UN travel rules state that:

• Most staff up to D-2 level normally travel economy, though some long-haul exceptions permit a higher class.
• Under-Secretaries-General (USGs) and Assistant Secretaries-General (ASGs) are entitled to “the class immediately below first class,” which in practice is generally business class on most airlines.

So, while the UN’s total annual travel spending has been in the range of hundreds of millions of dollars, the portion specifically attributable to senior officials flying business or first class is likely only a fraction of that total — probably in the tens of millions rather than hundreds of millions annually, based on the relatively small number of first-class tickets reported. The UN has steadily tightened rules on premium travel over the years, according to the report.

In addition to the existing entitlements for travelers, such as reimbursement for advance seat selection, in-flight meals and beverages, and one additional checked bag, the new incentives, according to the staff circular include:

Rest Periods (subject to supervisory approval)

• One additional day of rest upon arrival at the duty station, with up to one day of additional Daily Subsistence Allowance (DSA), if arriving early.
• The option to remain at the official business location for one extra day prior to return, with DSA, if this reduces overall ticket cost.
• One additional calendar day of rest upon return to duty station (no DSA).

Reimbursement of costs for

• Lounge access at departure and connection points for both outbound and inbound travel (where applicable).
• Purchase of “extra space seating” including “couch style” in economy class, if offered by the airline.

The circular appeals to staffers to consider the above incentives when planning official travel, ”and should you opt for voluntary downgrade, you may select any combination, provided that the total cost is less than the entitled business class fare, keeping in mind, any additional rest periods selected under the pilot will remain subject to the approval of your first reporting officer.”

How to get started

• Explore details on iSeek: New incentives for travelers: Voluntary downgrade pilot launches | iSeek
• Check out how-to guides on how to opt in;
• Contact your local HR, Travel, or Admin Office for further information and support.

“We encourage all staff to take advantage of these options and contribute to more cost-effective travel practices across the Organization”.

HRSD in the Office of Support Operations (OSO) and TTS in the Facilities and Commercial Acitivites Service (FCAS) within the Division of Administration (DOA), are part of the Department of Operationsl Support (DOS).

Read about DOS on iSeek or our website and follow us on LinkedIn and X.

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By Vijay Prashad
May 22 2026 (IPS-Partners)

 
In 1921, a few years into the Soviet experiment, V. I. Lenin published an essay with the revealing title ‘New Times and Old Mistakes in a New Guise’. The essay opened a line of inquiry that would remain with Lenin until the end of his life three years later. What captivated him was the issue of how to build socialism in a country ravaged by war, with minimal capital at its disposal, a largely peasant society with high rates of illiteracy (around 70%), and no public administration capable of running a socialist-oriented state. In the essay, Lenin reflected:

After an enormous, unparalleled exertion of effort, the working class in a small-peasant, ruined country, the working class which has very largely become declassed, needs an interval of time in which to allow new forces to grow and be brought to the fore, and in which the old and worn-out forces can ‘recuperate’. … One must understand this and reckon with the necessary or rather, inevitable slackening of the rate of growth of new forces of the working class.

This newsletter will be dedicated to the idea of ‘the interval of time’ necessary for a ‘ruined country’ to be resuscitated out of its backwardness to socialism (I’ve been thinking about this as I re-read our 100th dossier, The Future). We will discuss this idea in terms of the slowness of a socialist process to mature as capitalist society shudders in crisis. The concept of ‘slow to mature’ will be introduced here and deepened further in the work of our institute.

Konstantin Yuon (USSR), People, 1923.

All socialist revolutions in the modern world have taken place in the poorer nations, where the peasantry predominates and where wealth has been systematically leached from their territory into distant lands. In these poorer nations, the new revolutionary governments – whether in the Soviet Union (1917), Vietnam (1945), China (1949), or Cuba (1959) – had to develop their own state capacity out of almost nothing and build capital sums for the construction of infrastructure and industry. Neither state capacity nor capital came easily to these revolutionary processes, forcing them to experiment in ways that have not been properly documented. Here are six points built from what we do know about these processes, which serve as a baseline to develop a theory of the concept ‘slow to mature’. We encourage you to write to us with your own ideas about this concept based on your experiences and study.

1. Trust accumulates slowly, and old habits are difficult to break.

Revolutionary governments inherit structures shaped over generations by ancient hierarchies of caste and tribe that govern agrarian relations, by colonial humiliation and expropriation, and by total social deprivation. The Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union, for instance, discovered quickly that the old tsarist bureaucratic culture did not disappear in October 1917. Corruption, deference to authority, and distrust of collective institutions persisted for years. In China after the 1949 Revolution, the Communist Party repeatedly confronted the remnants of Confucian hierarchy, regional patronage systems, and peasant survival habits formed through centuries of insecurity. In Cuba after 1959, the revolutionary leadership spoke openly of creating a ‘new human being’ because they understood that socialist consciousness could not be legislated overnight.

People who live through the violence of colonialism and the inequalities of capitalism learn to protect themselves individually or through familial networks. For a socialist project to succeed, people must learn to trust collective systems. That trust grows slowly through experience – through schools that function, clinics that heal, housing that shelters, and institutions that endure. A revolution can seize state power quickly, but it cannot rapidly transform social psychology.

Douglas Pérez (Cuba), The porvenir (The Future), 2008.

2. Trade and finance networks favour the existing global order.

Capitalism does not merely dominate through ideology but through entrenched networks of trade and finance, as well as through the infrastructure of transport and communications. Countries attempting socialist transformation enter a world already organised around capitalist accumulation. After the Russian Revolution, the Soviet Union struggled because industrial supply chains, banking networks, and commercial routes were controlled by hostile capitalist powers. Cuba’s experience after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 showed this sharply: the island lost access to fuel, spare parts, credit, and trade relationships almost overnight because the world economy was structured around systems from which Cuba was largely excluded (and from which it is now being excluded further by the illegal US-run oil embargo). Vietnam, after reunification in 1975, faced enormous difficulties rebuilding an economy devastated by war while remaining outside of dominant financial and commercial circuits. Existing systems reproduce themselves because every institution, from ports to currencies to software standards, works in their favour. Building alternative networks takes decades, not years.

3. Capital and infrastructure costs are immense in countries impoverished by colonialism.

When the Vietnamese revolutionaries defeated US imperialism, they inherited a country physically devastated by bombardment and chemically poisoned by Agent Orange. Cuba inherited a monocrop sugar economy tied almost entirely to the United States. China in 1949 emerged from a century of humiliation and warlordism, Japanese imperialism, and civil war with low life expectancy, mass illiteracy, and weak industrial capacity.

These revolutions had to build railways and ports, schools and scientific institutions, electric grids and steel factories – almost from scratch. The North Atlantic capitalist countries industrialised over centuries, financed through enslavement, colonial plunder, and imperial tribute. Socialist state institutions in poorer countries that had been colonised were expected to compress this process into a few decades while under blockade or military threat and were then accused of state failure. The sheer material burden slowed transformation.

Đặng Thái Tuấn (Vietnam), Untitled (Mobile Convenience Store), 2021.

4. External pressures – such as sanctions, sabotage, diplomatic isolation, and war – slow development.

Every revolutionary state in the Third World has faced military encirclement or economic punishment. The Soviet Union was invaded by soldiers from over a dozen foreign countries after 1917 and later confronted the Nazi invasion, which killed at least twenty-seven million Soviet citizens and destroyed tens of thousands of towns and villages. Cuba has endured decades of US sanctions designed explicitly to create shortages and social discontent. Chile’s Popular Unity government attempted structural transformation but confronted immediate economic destabilisation, elite resistance, and external intervention before long-term reforms could consolidate. Nicaragua’s Sandinista government faced a Contra war financed by the United States and the mining of the country’s ports, including Corinto. Vietnam fought an anti-colonial war from 1945 to 1975.

These pressures consumed resources that would have gone to social development. Sanctions increase transaction costs, limit access to technology, and create chronic shortages. War destroys infrastructure and redirects labour to defence. Under these harsh conditions, inefficiencies emerge not from ideology or planning errors but from the permanent emergency conditions imposed by hostile powers.

5. Every process is inefficient in its early stages.

Revolutionary states try to create new administrative systems while simultaneously expanding education and health care, as well as conducting agrarian reform and industrial development. Mistakes and bureaucratic confusion, bottlenecks, and shortages are inevitable. The early Soviet planning system struggled with coordination because there was no historical precedent for the administration of a continental economy rooted in social justice rather than profit. China’s communes and industrial experiments suffered from weak technical expertise and uneven local implementation. In Cuba, shortages of trained professionals intensified when many fled to Miami after the revolution.

Public administration learns through practice. Institutions mature through trial and error. Socialist administrations in poorer nations are expected to achieve efficiency immediately while they confront embargoes, low literacy rates, and technological scarcity. Early inefficiency is therefore not exceptional but characteristic of any large-scale social transformation.

Ming Wong (Singapore), Ascent to the Heavenly Palace III, 2015.

6. Short electoral cycles obstruct social transformation.

Social transformation requires planning horizons measured in decades – not in the four- or five-year electoral cycles that reward immediate consumption over long-term reconstruction. Revolutionary governments require patience before visible gains appear. Even outside of explicitly socialist states, governments that attempt redistributive or developmental programmes often face sabotage through elections before projects mature. Transformative politics demand continuity, but electoral systems shaped by media cycles and financial pressures reward short-term management. Socialist experiments therefore repeatedly confronted the contradiction between historical time (the long duration needed to remake society) and electoral time (the compressed rhythm of modern politics).

Eva Schulze-Knabe (DDR), Demonstrierende Frauen (Women Marching), 1952.

In Bertolt Brecht’s The Mother (1931), the lead character, Pelagea Vlassova, toils through tragedy after tragedy until the Russian Revolution sweeps her into action. When she finds herself in a kitchen with several women, one of whom complains that they hear communism is nothing but a crime, she responds by singing:

It’s sensible– anyone can understand it. It’s easy.
If you’re not an exploiter, you can grasp it.
It’s good for you. Look into it.
The stupid call it stupid, and the rotten call it rotten.
It is against what’s rotten, and against stupidity.
The exploiters call it a crime.
But we know
it is the end of crime.
It is not madness but
the end of madness.
It is not chaos
but order.
It is the simple thing
so hard to bring about.

When thinking about ‘slow to mature’, I remembered Vlassova’s song. Vlassova worked her entire life yet had little to show for it but her dignity. She might not have had a full education, but she had her wits about her. She knew that communism is a ‘simple thing’, but she was not one to live in a dreamworld. It is simple, but ‘hard to bring about’.

This story was originally published by Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research

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Excerpt:

While the capitalist system rewards short-term cycles, building a dignified future is a slow task that requires disciplined organisation and an enduring struggle to bring forth the social forces of a new world.

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, May 22 2026 – Narges Mohammadi, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her human rights activism in Iran, has been allowed to go home. After guards found her unconscious in her cell, the apparent victim of a heart attack, she was granted temporary release from prison and transferred to a hospital. However, she still faces the threat of being taken back to jail once her condition has improved.

Mohammadi has been repeatedly imprisoned for criticising the theocratic regime, demanding women’s rights, advocating for prison reform and campaigning against the death penalty. Over her lifetime she’s been sentenced to a total of 44 years. She’s already spent more than a decade behind bars, including 161 days in solitary confinement, and has also been sentenced to 154 lashes. In February she was handed a further seven-and-a-half-year sentence. From prison – where she experienced cardiac and blood pressure problems and severe weight loss – she has documented systematic rights violations against political prisoners, including sexual and physical abuse of women detainees, torture and extensive use of solitary confinement.

Mohammadi’s case is one among many. While her ordeal has rightly drawn international attention, others more distant from the spotlight are in danger. Three more women human rights activists – Pakhshan Azizi, Sharifeh Mohammadi and Varisheh Moradi – are on death row at imminent risk of execution. The dangers they and countless others face have grown sharply since the current war began.

Repression tightens

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear he wants regime change in Iran. On 1 March, an Israeli strike killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. But if the intention was to topple the regime, it didn’t happen. Iran’s ruling theocratic structures run deep, with multiple layers of planned succession. Khamenei’s son Mojtaba Khamenei, injured in the same attack, was quickly named his replacement, despite Iran’s official ideology formally rejecting hereditary succession.

While clerical leaders have been killed, Iran’s coercive apparatus has gained in its day-to-day power, hardening the theocracy into something closer to a military dictatorship, with the Basij, the paramilitary volunteer force long deployed to crush public dissent, now front and centre.

Israeli and US hopes that Iranians would rise up against the regime have been disappointed. Iran has seen successive mass protest waves, each crushed with large-scale lethal violence. They include the Green Movement that demanded democracy in 2009 and 2010 and the Woman, Life, Freedom protests that demanded women’s rights in 2022 and 2023. The latest uprising came in December 2025 and January 2026, triggered by economic collapse, forging a movement that united broad sections of society to demand an end to the theocratic regime. The state suppressed it with shocking brutality, killing thousands and detaining tens of thousands.

By February, the uprising had been crushed. The Israeli-US intervention was unlikely to reignite a meaningful mass protest movement. If anything, for some Iranians the war has stoked patriotism and more intense enmity towards Israel and the USA. The anticipated revolt simply hasn’t happened.

Much of Iran’s vast diaspora has rallied in support of the war as a means of toppling the regime. But while the diaspora is united in demanding change, its array of ethnic minority organisations, Islamist factions, leftists, monarchists and republicans is bitterly divided over what should come next. Reza Pahlavi, son of the last shah, enjoys some support but others are wary about monarchical nostalgia and his close ties to Israel and the USA. The most credible potential unifying figures inside Iran are imprisoned or otherwise silenced.

Instead of losing control, the regime has tightened its repression. Even as Iran’s leaders wage a social media propaganda war abroad, at home they’ve imposed a near-total internet shutdown, including a block on VPN services. The blackout has caused immense economic harm, disrupting businesses and financial transactions and hitting women the hardest. This comes on top of the economic effects of the current US blockade of Iranian ports, sending inflation and unemployment soaring.

Under the cover of war and the internet shutdown, the government has accelerated executions of political prisoners. While precise figures are hard to get, rights groups report close to 200 executions so far this year, most preceded by prolonged torture to extract false confessions. Secret hangings are reportedly being carried out on an almost daily basis. Among those killed are people detained during the January protests. On 4 May, it was reported that three people arrested at protests on 8 and 9 January – Ebrahim Dolatabadinejad, Mohammadreza Miri and Mehdi Rasouli – had been hanged. For families, the suffering doesn’t end there, as authorities reportedly refuse to return bodies and pressure relatives to stay silent.

Local priorities

Democracy and human rights in Iran depend on the regime’s departure. But the latest war isn’t about any of this. For Netanyahu, with an election impending and anger remaining at his corruption charges and Israel’s security failures around the 7 October Hamas attacks, permanent warfare is a political strategy. Donald Trump’s many social media announcements provide little clue of what motivates a president who promised not to mire the USA in foreign wars, but distraction from low popularity ratings and his many appearances in the Epstein files may be a factor.

This war isn’t the way to achieve change. The regime appears entrenched and capable of surviving a longer conflict. Any peace deal would leave it intact, which its rulers would treat as a victory.

Real change will come when protests can grow into a mass movement large enough to withstand the lethal repression the state will inevitably deploy. That can only happen with sustained support that respects the autonomy of local civil society leaders and strengthens their capacity. The immediate priorities must be to protect credible local sources of information amid the information blackout and ensure the safety and security of Iran’s democracy and human rights activists.

Above all, states must press the Iranian government to halt executions and release everyone detained for speaking out, protesting and demanding change, beginning with Narges Mohammadi. Temporary medical release is nowhere near enough. The Iranian regime must let her be free.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

For interviews or more information, please contact [email protected]

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The protracted years of conflict in Syria have inflicted profound scars that transcend physical destruction, permeating the psychological well-being of millions. There has been a marked surge in mental health disorders and suicide rates, positioning psychiatric care and psychosocial support services as some of the most critical and urgent healthcare requirements for the population. According […]

By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS, May 21 2026 – Member states this week (May 20) deliberated over a draft resolution on states’ obligations in respect of climate change following the advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The General Assembly agreed to take measures to uphold the ICJ’s advisory opinion for member states to meet their existing obligations to climate justice under international law and multilateral frameworks.

The draft resolution (A/80/L.65) passed with 141 votes in favor, 8 votes against, and 28 abstentions. It was brought forward by the Republic of Vanuatu, along with the Core Group of States leading the UN General Assembly resolution responding to the ICJ advisory opinion. The resolution was introduced after a long period of consultations between member states. It outlines member states’ obligations to ensure the protection of the climate system by calling for multilateral cooperation to address what the ICJ has called an “existential problem of planetary proportions that imperils all forms of life and the very health of our planet.”

“This day will be remembered. It will be remembered as the moment the United Nations received the considered judgment of its highest court of its defining challenge of our time and decided what to do with it. Vanuatu and the Core Group believe this Assembly should meet that moment with unity, with seriousness, and with respect for the law and one another,” said Odo Tevi, Permanent Representative of Vanuatu to the UN.

Voting Record of Resolution A-80-L.65. Credit: UN TV

When introducing the draft resolution to the Assembly, Tevi remarked that the ICJ opinion “confirms that the protection of the climate system is a matter of legal obligation, not political discretion.” It would not replace or challenge existing agreements such as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol or the Paris Agreement, but rather reinforce them as the primary legislations and forums for the world’s response to climate change.

Amendments to the resolution were brought forward by a small group of member states, which included Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Algeria. Those that argued for the amendments posited that the current resolution required further legal clarity, particularly as it related to the measures required to support developing countries in mitigation and adaptation. At the same time, there were concerns that the amendments weakened the language around the actions and responsibilities of member states, and tabling them so late into the provision would risk undermining the careful negotiations. Ultimately though, the amendments did not pass and the resolution was adopted without them.

In their remarks following the vote, member states welcomed the adoption of the resolution in light of recognizing climate change as a defining existential issue of the modern age, commending Vanuatu for its leadership in pushing for the resolution.

Speaking on behalf of the Pacific Small-Island Developing States (SIDS), Filipo Tarakinikini, Permanent Representative of Fiji to the UN, welcomed the resolution, remarking that it was an “affirmation of survival” for island nations that have been uniquely threatened by climate change, experiencing lasting damages to their homes and their connection to heritage.

“We do not come to this hall asking for mercy. We come demanding justice. Justice that is today grounded in the authoritative voice of the world’s highest court. The Pacific will not disappear, and neither will our resolve,” said Tarakinikini.

Jérôme Bonnafont, Permanent Representative of France, said that this General Assembly decision was welcome in light of an “international context marred by many crises.”

“[France] will continue to defend ambitious climate action, multilateralism, respect for international law, and a science-based approach for sustainable development and for future generations,” Bonnafont said.

James Larsen, Permanent Representative of Australia, hoped that this resolution would “galvanize practical efforts” to protect the climate system and that the case for multilateralism has “never been stronger.” With Australia set to host COP31 later this year, Larsen remarked his country would continue working together with member states to accelerate climate action.

Among those that abstained from voting or were against the resolution are states accused of being major carbon emitters, including G77 members like India and Saudi Arabia. Both the United States of America and the Russian Federation voted against the resolution.

Prior to the vote, the United States expressed that their opposition was based on their “serious legal and policy concerns” about the resolution. The U.S. delegate noted that the resolution called for states to fulfill alleged obligations based on a non-binding ruling from the ICJ, and opposed the resolution’s “inappropriate political demands” to address climate issues.

The Russian Federation’s delegate argued after that member states’ climate obligations, such as the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold, were more of a political obligation rather than normative and that the resolution was an effort to circumvent existing climate agreements.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres welcomed the adoption of the resolution, commending the leadership of Pacific Island countries, SIDs and the students and activists whose “moral clarity helped bring the world to this moment.”

“The world’s highest court has spoken. Today, the General Assembly has answered,” said Guterres. “This is a powerful affirmation of international law, climate justice, science, and the responsibility of states to protect people from the escalating climate crisis… Those least responsible for climate change are paying the highest price. That injustice must end.”

Reacting to the debate, Yamide Dagnet, NRDC’s Senior Vice President, International, said, “Climate justice prevails! The world sent a loud signal that multilateralism and science matter and can deliver for the people and the planet.”

While congratulating the Small Island States, the youths and frontline communities who refused to stand down for their energy, tenacity and leadership, she noted,  “There will be a lot of noise about the difficulty in enforcing this resolution, but the reality is that it represents a watershed moment for polluter accountability. Moving forward, regulators and courts have an additional tool in their arsenal to force nations and companies to look at how they can put people over pollution and better protect the world’s most impacted communities and countries with dignity.”

The Prime Minister of the Republic of Vanuatu, Jotham Napat, said the country expressed profound gratitude to 141 Member States that voted in favor of the UNGA resolution welcoming the Advisory Opinion of the ICJ on climate change and to the 90 States that stood together as co-sponsors of this historic initiative.

“This outcome is a powerful affirmation that the international community remains committed to the rule of law, multilateral cooperation, and climate justice at a time when these principles are being tested,” Napat said while acknowledging that the resolution was the first step in a new journey. 

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By Carla Ruas
BELÉM, Brazil, May 21 2026 – On Brazil’s northeastern coast, the Indigenous community, Tremembé da Barra do Mundaú, lives on a preserved stretch of land shaped by mangroves, dunes, and deserted beaches. The group of around 160 families is led by women and depends on the 3,500-hectare territory for fishing and subsistence farming.

In 2023, the Tremembé won federal recognition of their ancestral land in the state of Ceará – giving them formal control over the territory.

But their home remains under threat. As tourism has expanded, they have faced growing pressure from real estate developments and around 100 non-Indigenous settlers. A push for renewable energy has also brought nearby wind projects that the community says damage the environment and disrupt their way of life.

“We have many problems here, including trash in our rivers, cars scaring away animals, and people damaging the dunes,” said Cleidiane Tremembé, a local Indigenous teacher. “With the installation of wind farms, many fish species have also disappeared from our river, and we’re catching fewer fish.”

The Tremembé da Barra do Mundaú Indigenous Land protects 27 km of mangrove forest and 8 km of coastline. Credit: Samuel Tremembé

This May, the group will begin investing roughly US$300,000 in efforts to protect their territory. The funds come from the Ywy Ipuranguete (‘beautiful land’) project – an ambitious initiative that aims to distribute a total of US$9 million to 15 Indigenous Lands across Brazil by 2030.

The project is coordinated by Brazil’s Ministry of Indigenous Peoples (MPI), implemented by the Brazilian Biodiversity Fund (FUNBIO), and financed through the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF). The GBFF, whose donors include the governments of Canada, Norway and the United Kingdom, is managed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) – the world’s largest multilateral environmental fund.

According to the GEF, the goal is to support the protection of Indigenous territories as a strategy to conserve biodiversity and strengthen climate resilience.

“A growing body of evidence shows that territories managed by Indigenous Peoples — particularly where land tenure is formally recognised — consistently rank among the most effective settings for maintaining biodiversity, retaining carbon stocks, and preserving ecological integrity, often outperforming both unprotected lands and formally designated conservation areas,” said Adriana Moreira, Lead of the Partnerships Division at the GEF.

If fully implemented, the project would help protect 6.4 million hectares and reach around 61,000 Indigenous people.

Following the project’s launch in March 2025, the Tremembé will be among the first communities to put the funds into action.

Tremembé community member Mateus Castro says their goal is to preserve their land and culture for future generations. Credit: Julia Holanda

Mateus Castro, a community member coordinating the work locally, said the money will be used primarily to acquire drones, radio transmitters, vehicles and a boat to help secure the territory’s boundaries.

“We want to monitor and record the presence of outsiders,” he said in an interview. “This project will allow us to have the tools that give our territory security and autonomy.”

The same equipment would help the community inventory local ecosystems and animal species. Their coastal stretch is home to a wide range of species – from fish and crabs to endangered sea turtles.

“We want to record the species along our coastline so we can use that information as a defence against the licensing of new offshore wind farms,” he said.

With the funding, they also plan to reforest degraded areas, train local environmental brigades, and fund traditional festivals. The first will be the Farinhada Festival that takes place in July. During the festivities, families celebrate cassava as a sacred food and prepare traditional dishes for younger generations.

“In Indigenous culture, everything is connected,” Castro said. “Our goal is to preserve our land, culture, and identity for the children who are yet to be born. We are thinking 100, 200 years from now.”

Future Plans

The Indigenous communities selected to participate in the Ywy Ipuranguete project were chosen by FUNAI, Brazil’s federal Indigenous affairs agency, with input from Indigenous organisations.

The priority was given to groups outside the Amazon, including the Tremembé in Ceará, as part of an effort to decentralise environmental funding. Nearly half of Brazil’s 1.69 million Indigenous people live outside the Legal Amazon, according to the legal census.

“If we look at environmental projects in general, funding, implementation, and resources are usually focused on the Amazon,” said Francisco Itamar Gonçalves Melgueiro, FUNAI’s general coordinator for environmental policies. “That is why we distributed the project across five biomes in Brazil – the Amazon, Pantanal, Cerrado, Caatinga and Atlantic Forest.”

FUNAI also selected communities that had recently removed invaders from their lands, including the Kayapó and Munduruku, who have been in conflict with illegal miners in the Amazon for decades. “After that removal, we see an opportunity for Indigenous peoples to fully retake possession of their territories,” Melgueiro said.

Communities did not need their territories to be fully recognised by the federal government to qualify for the funding. However, they had to submit detailed plans, known as PGTAs, which are part of a broader set of Indigenous territorial and environmental management documents.

During the Farinhada Festival, families celebrate cassava and prepare traditional dishes such as tapioca crepes. Credit: Julia Holanda

“These plans serve as blueprints for their future and cover a wide range of themes and actions,” Melgueiro said. “They are an instrument of the peoples, built by the peoples.”

But many are still working on their PGTAs. More than a decade after Brazil created the framework for these plans, a 2023 civil-society report found that Indigenous communities have received little support for their development, especially during the administration of Brazilian right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro. To date, FUNAI has mapped just 148 PGTAs in a country with more than 800 Indigenous Lands.

The first year of the Ywy Ipuranguete project has been largely dedicated to helping participating communities finalise and detail their PGTAs. The Brazilian Biodiversity Fund (FUNBIO), GEF’s implementing agency, told IPS that this “is a massive and meticulous undertaking”, as they work with Indigenous communities to “determine which PGTA activities are to be undertaken, the best methods for executing them, and the specific implementation arrangements for each Indigenous Land”.

According to Brazil’s Ministry of Indigenous Peoples (MPI), only about 8% of the total budget has been spent so far, mostly on planning, coordination and initial activities. Eventually, MPI said, 75% of the budget will go directly to the communities, with much of the funding transferred to Indigenous organisations. “Investing in Indigenous peoples to maintain their own ways of existing is investing in the survival of humanity itself,” the ministry said in a statement.

Community members say fish species have disappeared from their river following the installation of nearby wind farms. Credit: Samuel Tremembé

In an email, Brazil’s Ministry of Indigenous Peoples (MPI) said only about 8% of the total budget has been spent so far, mostly on planning, coordination and initial activities. Eventually, MPI said, 75% of the budget will go directly to the communities, with much of the funding transferred to Indigenous organisations.

“Investing in Indigenous peoples to maintain their own ways of existing is investing in the survival of humanity itself,” the ministry said in a statement.

In Tremembé da Barra do Mundaú, where plans are underway, the community feels ready. The funding will build on years of work, from training young environmental agents to documenting food traditions.

“This is one of the largest resources the territory has ever received,” Castro said. “For us, it’s a huge opportunity to consolidate and strengthen our mission of caring for the land.”

Note: The Eighth Global Environment Facility Assembly will be held from May 30 to June 6, 2026, in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
This feature is published with the support of the GEF. IPS is solely responsible for the editorial content, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of the GEF.

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By CIVICUS
May 21 2026 –  
CIVICUS discusses the cancellation of RightsCon 2026 with Barbora Bukovská, Senior Director for Law and Policy at ARTICLE 19, a human rights organisation that works on freedom of expression and information around the world.

Barbora Bukovská

On 29 April – days before RightsCon, the key global gathering of digital rights advocates, was due to open in Lusaka – the Zambian government announced a postponement that effectively cancelled the event. The government stands accused of giving in to China’s pressure over the participation of people from Taiwan. The event had been set to bring over 2,600 participants to sub-Saharan Africa for the first time, with another 1,100 joining online. Instead, it became the latest casualty of growing authoritarian pressure on the spaces where civil society convenes.

Why does the cancellation of RightsCon matter?

This cancellation is significant on three levels. First, it means the loss of community. The human rights movement depends on relationships built across borders and over time. RightsCon was one of the few global spaces where civil society organisations, funders, governments, journalists, researchers and technology professionals could meet without political interference. Losing it means losing opportunities to build solidarity and strengthen the networks the movement runs on.

Second, it was a symbolic blow. RightsCon represented the idea that at least one global space existed where civil society could convene freely, protected from political pressure. That illusion is now shattered. The space proved vulnerable. It is yet more evidence of shrinking civic space globally, and the message it sends is chilling: no space is truly protected from state interference any more.

Third, it caused financial damage. Following funding cuts from the USA in early 2025 and reduced funding from other major donor governments, civil society is struggling to secure resources. Organisations had invested precious funding to attend RightsCon, covering travel, organising side events and preparing advocacy materials. These are resources vulnerable civil society organisations cannot afford to waste.

What does this episode reveal about transnational repression?

The cancellation lays bare how emboldened China feels to globalise its political red lines and exercise transnational repression. For years, it has applied pressure on governments to sideline Taiwanese participation in multilateral forums. Taiwan’s leading role in digital rights and technology has long irritated China. What’s new is other governments’ willingness to yield.

China’s tactics have grown more sophisticated. Rather than open confrontation, it leverages threats of diplomatic fallout or lost investment. The pressure now extends into spaces once thought beyond its reach, such as cultural institutions, rights conferences and universities. China has shown it can coerce governments across sectors and at multiple levels.

The wider context matters too. The USA, once a leading global supporter of internet freedom, has retreated from diplomatic and financial backing for digital rights. China’s influence on the African continent has expanded in the absence of rights-based alternatives. When democratic states withdraw support for civil society, authoritarian influence fills the void.

How do China’s leverage and Zambia’s democratic decline combine?

China’s leverage across Africa has grown substantially in recent years. Chinese funding has built major infrastructure in Zambia, including Mulungushi International Conference Centre, the venue where RightsCon was due to take place. Only days before the cancellation, China signed a new agreement to fund further development projects. Zambia carries roughly US$5 billion in debt to China, and that dependency comes with strings attached.

Domestically, the picture is similarly bleak. Despite President Hakainde Hichilema being elected in 2021 on a promise of democratic renewal, civic space has shrunk steadily since. In 2025, parliament passed cybersecurity laws now used to curtail freedom of expression online and detain political opponents. Ahead of the August 2026 general election, the government is enacting further laws designed to entrench its power. Political control is winning out over democratic commitments.

Yielding to Chinese pressure while restricting civic space at home calls Zambia’s commitment to the rule of law and human rights into serious doubt. The debt creates a channel through which China can extract political cooperation. Together, these dynamics create a dangerous precedent for other global south nations facing similar pressure.

What does this mean globally?

The danger extends well beyond Zambia. If a government can cancel a major international civil society gathering without serious diplomatic or institutional consequences, it sends the wrong signals. States must show that interference carries costs. Democratic states, multilateral organisations and regional institutions must impose costs through sustained pressure and exclusion from future convenings.

International human rights mechanisms, including the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association, have already condemned Zambia’s decision. But statements alone are not enough. Zambia shouldn’t be considered a reliable host for rights-based global dialogue in future.

If governments can yield to authoritarian pressure at the expense of civil society protections without paying a price, the pattern will spread.

What steps should be taken to protect global civil society forums?

Civil society can adapt but cannot insulate its gatherings from state pressure on its own. Real responsibility lies with states that claim to support human rights. They must send a diplomatic and political signal that interference in global forums is costly and prevent other governments from following Zambia’s example. They must reaffirm their commitment to multi-stakeholder forums and invest in civil society’s ability to convene and participate.

That includes member states of international coalitions such as the Freedom Online Coalition and the Media Freedom Coalition. They must act against restrictions on civic space and freedom of expression, using these platforms to impose costs on governments that interfere with civil society. The behaviour Zambia has just normalised must be made costly.

The UN, other intergovernmental organisations and states must work to guarantee the safety and openness of global gatherings. As democratic states withdraw support and authoritarian states expand their reach, the spaces where global civil society can gather, build relationships and advance human rights will continue to shrink. What’s at stake is the infrastructure of global civil society coordination and solidarity.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

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SEE ALSO
Democracy: an enduring aspiration CIVICUS | State of Civil Society Report 2026
Zambia: ‘Constitutional changes in an election period tend to be driven by political expediency rather than the public interest’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Gideon Musonda 24.Dec.2025
Zambia: ‘The NGO Bill strengthens legal mechanisms designed to discredit or silence critical civil society voices’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Josiah Kalala 03.Jun.2025

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